Students to present service-learning projects May 5
The University of Maine’s Campuses for Environmental Stewardship groups will present student service-learning projects from 12:30–3 p.m. Thursday, May 5 in the Bangor Room, Memorial Union.
Students, faculty and community members will be in attendance.
Projects conducted this semester focused on issues of importance in the state including: sustainable tourism, mining activities, Penobscot River water rights, and the creation of a national park in northern Maine.
The projects are part of a multistate collaborative to support curricular innovation and environmental stewardship.
Graduate students in anthropology professor Cynthia Isenhour’s course, ANT 555: Natural Resource Management in Cross Cultural Perspective, will speak about how they applied what they learned in class to the analysis of several community-engaged case studies.
Students researched and analyzed several natural resource management conflicts in the state, including debates over bear baiting, Penobscot River water rights, the creation of a national park near Katahdin, and the future of waste management.
In each case, students engaged with locally relevant issues to understand how factors such as diverse views on nature, economic interests and political power can translate into difficult natural resource management scenarios.
Sandra De Urioste-Stone, a professor of nature-based tourism, led the class, SFR 493: Sustainable Tourism Planning. Students in her class worked to develop a regional sustainable tourism plan for the communities of Bethel, Newry, Rumford, Norway and South Paris.
Students went on field trips, collected data and talked to experts to generate a vision statement, conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, develop destination goals and objectives, and create an action plan for the communities.
Community partners for the project included Mike Wilson, senior program director of Northern Forest Center; Mia Purcell, program manager of Western Maine Economic Development Council; and Robin Zinchuk, executive director of the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce.
Joining the service-learning presentation day will be students in SFR 479/579: Environmental Attitudes and Behavior.
Thirty-two undergraduates and eight graduate students took the course taught by John Daigle, a professor of forest recreation management. The students worked on the research project, “Mining in Maine: Characterization of Public Perceptions and Mineral Reaction Rates under Maine’s Environmental Conditions,” which is being led by Amanda Olsen, an Earth science professor; Jean MacRae, a civil and environmental engineering professor; and De Urioste-Stone.
Students helped develop a survey to best measure Maine residents’ perceptions of likely environmental, socio-cultural and economic risks and opportunities that could result from increasing mining activities, as well as how those factors may affect their quality of place and potential behaviors. Survey results will be provided to the Maine Legislature and communities to inform decision making.
UMaine belongs to Maine Campus Compact, a coalition of 18 member campuses, whose purpose is to catalyze and lead a movement to reinvigorate the public purposes and civic mission of higher education.
Maine Campus Compact, in partnership with Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont Campus Compacts, was awarded a Davis Educational Foundation grant to form the Campuses for Environmental Stewardship (CES) program. The program aims to train college faculty in the participating states to develop and deliver courses which partner with community organizations to address pressing environmental issues.
Projects completed last semester at UMaine focused on the Penobscot River dam removal and restoration, and building sustainable energy communities by providing low-cost window inserts.
The collaborative continues through fall 2016.
More about the Campuses for Environmental Stewardship program is online.